Tag Archives: irbt

IRobot’s Roomba faces biggest rival yet in Dyson

Inventor and entrepreneur James Dyson introduced his company’s first robotic home vacuum cleaner at a press event Thursday in Japan, taking on industry leader iRobot’s (IRBT) Roomba. The Dyson 360 Eye robot vacuum features a vision system that observes and interprets its surroundings. Like its name suggests, the robot camera sees all around the room at once. The 360-degree vision system uses “complex mathematics, probability theory, geometry and trigonometry to map and navigate a room,” the company’s website says. “So it knows where it is, where it’s been and where it’s yet to clean.” The robot uses cyclone technology and a full-width brush bar to suck up dirt and dust. Its powerful motor gives it “the highest suction of any robot vacuum,” the company claims. Dyson’s website doesn’t specify when the Dyson 360 Eye robot will be available for purchase in the U.S. or how much it will cost….

Dyson mystery product could be Roomba killer

Look out, Roomba. British inventor and vacuum cleaner giant James Dyson is getting ready to take on iRobot’s (IRBT) popular home vacuuming robot. Dyson’s eponymous company released a video Tuesday that teases a Sept. 4 announcement. The cryptic video shows images of a laboratory using a wide-angle lens from the perspective of a machine near the floor. The video also has computer graphics that seem to show a robot navigation system. A description of the video says it shows “Dyson project N223,” which took 16 years, 200 engineers and an investment of 28 million British pounds ($46.4 million).  IRobot stock was down more than 3.5%, near 33, in afternoon trading on the stock market today to date, most of iRobot’s competition has come from lower-cost copycat products out of Asia. U.K.-based Dyson has been widely anticipated to enter the robotic vacuum cleaner market for some time. Earlier this year, Dyson…

Home robot maker iRobot short-circuits on Q2 guidance

Home-robot builder iRobot delivered first-quarter results that beat expectations and reaffirmed its full-year guidance, but the company’s stock fell hard on the news. As an old-time TV robot might say, “That does not compute.” Bedford, Mass.-based iRobot (IRBT), however, gave June-quarter guidance that fell short of analyst expectations. The company late Tuesday said that it earned 18 cents a share on sales of $114 million in the March quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected 16 cents and $112 million. On a year-over-year basis, iRobot’s sales were up nearly 8%, while EPS dipped 14% excluding a one-time tax credit a year earlier. Based on those Q1 results and its outlook, iRobot reaffirmed its full-year financial expectations of $560 million to $570 million in sales, earnings per share of $1 to $1.15 and adjusted earnings of $74 million to $78 million. IRobot stock on Wednesday fell 10.4% to 35.52 on the…